TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsAfter 81 years of independence, our institutions must come of age
After 81 years of independence, how strong are the state institutions tasked with holding this nation together?
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Set as preferred source
True colors: Students of SDN Mojosongo 3 state elementary school in Surakarta, Central Java wash Red and White national flags on Aug. 7, 2026 ahead of the 81st anniversary of Indonesian independence. (Antara/Maulana Surya)
E
very August, as red and white flags frame our streets, we return to the same foundational question: how far has the nation truly come since 1945?
State officials tend to provide quantitative answers. They measure progress in thousands of kilometers of toll roads, double-digit growth in foreign direct investment, expanding military hardware or Indonesia’s rising stature in global forums.
While all of these metrics matter, focusing exclusively on material outputs obscures a far more fundamental issue: After 81 years of independence, how strong are the state institutions tasked with holding this nation together?
In Political Order in Changing Societies (1968), Samuel P. Huntington argued that the most vital distinction between nations lay not in their form of government, but in the degree of government they were capable of exercising. Political order becomes fragile when social and economic modernization outpaces the development of political institutions.
Indonesia has indeed transformed since 1945. Over eight decades, we have constructed a modern state machinery comprising a professional civil service, a bicameral legislature, an independent judiciary, local administrations, oversight commissions and security apparatuses. In a structural sense, our state-building project has achieved remarkable success.
However, building the administrative structure of a state is fundamentally distinct from establishing strong institutions. Indonesia has succeeded in creating the apparatus of authority; its modern challenge is ensuring these institutions possess sufficient autonomy to constrain power, including the authority of those who govern.
This systemic deficit is most clearly reflected in the recurring waves of corruption across the state apparatus. Scandal after scandal demonstrates that no branch is immune. The Supreme Court and lower courts have repeatedly been embroiled in bribery schemes involving judicial fixers; auditors at the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), the guardians of public finance, have been indicted for altering audit scores; executive agencies and regional governments routinely contend with procurement kickbacks; even independent electoral bodies have proven vulnerable.
